A lot of 2016 predictions, including Fred Wilson’s excellent list, mention consumer adoption of virtual reality (VR) games and apps. This week, Oculus announced a March release date and a price point just shy of $600. The New York Public Library, often a leader in digital, has released more that 187,000 digitized images in the public domain. You …
Friday 5 — 12.4.2015
Nike shoes, Star Wars droids, and hoverboards were among the popular products shopped for on Black Friday. If you were shopping from the comfort of your couch, you were in good company: Smartphone sales nearly doubled year over year, from 9.1% to 15.2 %. Read the full report PDF, and ignore Wired’s snark that Cyber …
Friday 5 — 11.13.2015
Who are your top 9 — the people who appear in that mysterious box on your Facebook profile page? Turns out it’s not the people whom you stalk (or who stalk you). Instead, Facebook’s algorithm displays these people on your profile page as subtle encouragement for you to interact with them. Benedict Evans has a new post on mobile as the …
Friday 5 — 11.6.2015
Tired of drafting the same email reply over and over? Google is here to help with SmartReply, a new Inbox app feature that suggest replies to your email messages. You can edit the reply as suggested, or delete it and write your own. Extra credit: Geek out on the machine learning under the hood. If you …
Friday 5 — 10.30.2015
In the early 90s, corporate marketing departments produced physical brand books, illustrating dos and don’ts for print, TV, signage, trade shows, etc. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the digital world requires a wide-ranging brand treatment that enables variations in volume, and concepts like stacking. See this gorgeous Netflix brand rollout for a best-in-class example. I’m a longtime …
Friday 5 — 10.16.2015
When you’re in love, you text daily. Or at least our teenagers do 72% of the time, compared with only 39% who talk on the phone daily. And when they break up? 43% untag or delete photos shared online. Read the full report on teens, technology, and romantic relationships. How do you manage product feedback in …
How Budweiser won the Nobel Prize in chemistry
It’s easy to spot the difference between an organization with digital DNA and an organization still making the transition. Here’s an example highlighting different approaches to breaking news. On Monday morning the Nobel Prize in chemistry was announced. The Wall Street Journal was pushing the story via multiple Twitter accounts. So I clicked on one …
Friday 5 — 9.25.2015
Facebook has already established itself as a formidable video-serving rival to YouTube. This week, with the help of its Oculus acquisition, Facebook launched 360 degree videos — click and drag the video above to see what is now possible. This interactivity is terrific for all kinds of immersive experiences from tours to product demos, as well as myriad off-label …
Friday 5 — 9.11.2015
If you’re thinking about mobile as just another line item in your overall internet strategy, Benedict Evans will set you straight. Some company cultures are more conducive to digital transformation, while others hinder progress. This HBR post discusses the risks of excessive focus on technology, and the benefits of distributed decision-making. Your digital footprint — gleaned …
6 ways to create findable, useful website content
Search engine optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and increasingly, paid social media placement can achieve remarkable results. Using smart keywords and accessing segmented, up-to-date user data troves like Facebook’s can produce the kinds of attention that drive revenue, and occasionally even “go viral”. But sometimes these tools lead people to believe they can omit the first, essential step: creating …